


Daken Wears a Flannel Shirt

by MrBurner



Category: Dark Wolverine (Comics), Wolverine (Comics), X-Men (Comicverse), X-Men - All Media Types
Genre: But He Gets Better, Character Death, Gen, Gore, Oh, Or does he, also a mention of the time logan DROWNED HIS SON IN A PUDDLE, i dont know i have a high tolerance for that so be careful if you don't, i mean nobody with logan's un-killable genes ever dies the perma death so, maybe? - Freeform, never gonna get over that one james
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-05
Updated: 2018-09-09
Packaged: 2019-07-07 11:36:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,263
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15907488
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MrBurner/pseuds/MrBurner
Summary: Father son bonding time but with a de-limbed half-corpse.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This came from a cursed challenge: Daken should wear flannel. Now your eyes are cursed too.

He knew explosions, mainly from the inside.  Knew them well enough to have goddamn categories. 

You got throwers, you got burners, you got nukes. This one was a burner. Logan spat out the taste of his own roasting skin and charcoaled hair, and headed through what was left of the bunker toward the exit.

The smell stopped him short. More burning. More death. Familiar blood.

He lumbered toward it, choking on smoke, and crouched. Shoved the fallen pillar back. And there he was. 

What was left of him. 

Daken had been caught hard by the blast, his legs were gone, along with half his torso and a hefty skull chunk. All his hair.

Fuck, he’d be angry about that.

Unless he burned to soot.

Logan wished later that it wasn’t a choice. A man sees his kid dying, maybe dead, they ought to jump to help. Shouldn’t have to  _ think  _ about it.

But Daken- some version of Daken- had killed the students.

The fire was catching up, crackling closer. Logan closed his eyes and cursed. When he left, he was carrying his son on his back. 

 

Ten miles of trudging through the snow and they reached what he’d been sniffing for: a largely abandoned cabin sitting down the valley from that damn bunker.

Door kicked in easy; he stumbled through and dumped Daken on the sagging sofa. His own legs were frostbitten past the knees, and the burns were catching up on him. He needed to rest. Let himself heal. 

But the cabin was freezing. Healing wouldn’t help if all he healed into was an ice cube. 

So he blocked the door closed with an old cabinet. Built a fire in the stove. Lit it. Then finally, finally let himself collapse beside his son’s corpse.

Maybe by the time he woke up, he'd be alive again.

 

Logan was out for hours. The rest of the night plus a chunk of the next day. But when he came round, aching and exhausted from the healing, Daken was still dead and cold beside him. 

Didn't even _smell_ alive. Logan narrowed his eyes and leaned in to inspect the frayed edges of his son’s skin. Rough looking and blasted apart. Destroyed. Didn’t look like he'd even started to heal. 

Fuck. Maybe the explosion had been too much. Maybe his healing factor was broken.

Fuck. 

He let out a breath between his teeth and stood. No point in thinking about it. Wasn’t like him mourning would help Daken any. 

Hell, wasn’t like he had a right to mourn.

 

 

The smart thing to do was leave. Leave Daken, let him heal or rot alone out here. Wash his hands of the whole thing and head back to civilisation.

 

 

Logan spent the next morning felling a tree. They needed fire wood, whoever had lived here hadn’t left much. After that there was food- good thing he’d never been a picky eater. He dragged a deer back, sliced it into meal sized chunks and buried it in the snow outside. Nature’s freezer. 

All through that he kept the fire burning inside. Would that help? Not for the first time Logan wished he knew more about his own powers. Maybe the heat would just rot Daken faster, if he was going to rot. 

But nothing would stop that. 

And it didn’t feel right to leave him in the cold. 

“Wish they’d left some beer.” Logan sighed and leaned back on the heavy kitchen table. Daken didn’t reply.  Of course he didn’t. Was he a beer drinker? Maybe, if he was slumming it. More likely something fancy. Martinis. Something with cranberry juice. 

Shit. A father ought to know what his son drank. 

Logan wasn’t stupid. He’d failed the kid just about every way he could have. But sometimes, some tiny thing like that would break through and remind him just how deep his abandonment ran. 

And now he was dead. Dead again, after the last time when Logan had killed him himself. Drowned him in a fucking puddle.  

Logan _wasn’t_ stupid. You couldn’t come back from that. He didn’t deserve to come back from that. 

Had it been the wrong thing to do? Daken for the students. Easy if you went by the maths. Downright criminal not to do it, if you went by the maths. If you believed what some potential future version of yourself told you. 

And what was he doing now? Waiting for him to come back, to come back so he could keep killing.

Easy. If you went by the maths. 

And Daken might be beyond healing already. He might be standing here struggling with a question that didn’t even need to be asked. If he dumped him in the snow out here, if he cut him up and buried him in the deep permafrost, he’d be here for close to forever. Preserved, like the deer. Dead, or as good as. 

Logan stepped forward. Unsheathed his claws, all his movements slow and heavy. His son. Who he’d already killed. Who had been fucking brainwashed. Who had kidnapped a kid and murdered who knew how many more. Who hadn’t had a choice in what he was, who was still choosing to do it now-

Easy by the maths. 

He’d half raised his arm when he saw it. 

The burnt, blackened flesh at the edge of his wound. It had changed. Gone red and bloody. 

He was fucking alive. 

Or getting there, anyway. 

Logan stopped short. Breath hitched. Eyes widened. He could smell the life returning to his son: smell the cells splitting, the bones growing. Hair follicles. Skin. 

He couldn’t end that again. He could never end that again. 

“Fuck.” His claws were back in, he stood over Daken for another moment. Walked away. Came back with a musty blanket from the bedroom. Felt like an idiot as he draped it over the torso on the sofa. If Daken was awake he’d say something biting and sarcastic about that, about how Logan really thought a fucking blanket was going to make up for everything? A fucking blanket? 

He didn’t. Of course he didn't. Logan wasn’t stupid. 

Nothing could ever do that. 

He cut more wood when they needed it, leaving fresh, damp logs to dry out beside the fire. He cooked himself a deer chunk twice a day. 

Cooking. If Daken was awake he’d sneer about that. “Trying to be civilised Logan? Really?” 

Or maybe he’d call him ‘father’ in that sarcastic snarl he’d worked so hard on. 

Ah, crap. He was smiling at the thought. (“Getting sentimental, Logan? Really?”)

Anyway, it’d be a while before the kid was talking. He was missing his lungs. 

 

 

His arm grew back first. Slowly. One long evening- fire burning, snow falling- Logan sat in a moldering arm chair and watched the nerves creep slowly down along Daken’s bare bone. 

Good thing he wouldn’t remember that. Fucking creepy of him, he knew that. Daken would have hated the thought of someone, of him especially, watching him when he was so vulnerable. 

But it was his kid. Coming back to life. It was sort of beautiful. 

And it wasn’t like there was a television. 

 

 

The next day Daken had his full arm back. Most of his torso too. 

He looked cold again, lying there pale and small. Blanket wasn’t big enough for a full body. Logan re-raided the bedroom and found half a dozen flannel shirts. A pair of jeans. The sorta stuff that made you wonder why whoever lived here had left without packing. 

Unless you were “an emotionally constipated, sanctimonious old fool”. 

Logan smiled. Nah, Daken would have thought of something better to say than that. Something crueler. More personal. 

The shirts were too big for him, but they were better than nothing. He’d got one behind Daken’s shoulders before he realised he had no idea how to dress someone else. Fuck. He didn’t want to hurt him  _ worse.  _

Logan snorted. That was a joke. Kid was missing half his head, a little more than half his body, and here he was worried he'd hurt him  _more_ ? Stupid. 

It took him maybe half an hour to gently- as gently as he was able, anyway- thread Daken’s right arm through the first sleeve. He stopped suddenly, holding his hand, feeling the claws under his skin. 

What a goddamn legacy. 

Poor kid. 

He got the rest of the shirt onto him and started on the buttons. “Sorry it’s not silk. Or… velvet.” Did they make velvet shirts? Probably. “You can get back at me by tryin’ to kill me again or something.” 

There was a fluttering under his hand as Daken started, very gently, to breathe. 


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> feral_albertan_female said:
> 
> “Loved this. More, please”
> 
> ....  
> oKAY

_ Painpainpainpain- _

_ Blinding  _ fucking pain behind his eyes, down his back, in his fucking  _ teeth- _

Fucking hell, what had he  _ done  _ last night? 

Opening his eyes was a bad, bad idea, but he tried to anyway. The light that came in cut through to the back of his skull, left a laser burn beam through his brain. Fuckfuck _ fuck- _

Daken growled, grabbing blindly for the side of his head, tried to pull his thoughts together. But everything was hard and  _ sore  _ and fucking-

Fuck, maybe he should stick his claws through his eyes. But dying did nothing for hangovers. 

Wait. Hangover? Was this a hangover? He couldn’t remember drinking. Couldn’t remember, couldn’t remember, couldn’t  _ fucking  _ remember. He hated that. Hated losing control of his own fucking brain. Hated-

His hand was lifted off his head. An attack? Had to-

Oh.  _ Oh _ , something cold against the pain. So cold it hurt, but it hurt in the opposite direction from before, felt almost soothing. Fuck  _ fuck  _ that was good. He let out a whimper, a stupid, weak little reflex, and leaned himself harder into the cold. Ah  _ ah- _

Something new connected in his brain, some neuron fired harder and his nose was working and fuckfuckfuck he knew that fucking smell fucking  _ fuck  _ fucking  _ Logan.  _

Daken forced his eyes open again, winced, and closed one. Through the pain of the light he could make out a shape, could make out the shape of his fucking father sitting over him, sitting there and fucking soothing whatever was wrong with him, holding some fucking ice pack or fucking something against the fire in his skull.  _ Fuck _ . 

Only one thing to do. 

He groped with one arm, and when he was certain he’d found something warm and soft enough to be his father, shot out his claws. 

The yelp told him he’d been right. So did the sudden vanishing of the cool, the sudden reappearance of that terrible pain.  _ Worth it.  _

Logan grunted somewhere, Daken felt him get to his feet, heard him breathing hard as whatever damage he’d done fixed itself. Then the cold returned. God  _ fuck  _ it felt good. 

He couldn’t let Logan do that to him. Couldn’t let him score that point. 

“ _ Getrroffamefuuckkryouu.. _ ” His voice was slurred. Messy. Lacking dignity. He hated it! Hated himself, hated his stupid mouth that wouldn’t do what he fucking wanted it to. What had  _ happened to him? _

Wait. Logan was talking. He could hear it through the fog. Focus, focus-

“-plosion. You got---bad. ---heal---not tryin’ to be--- just---”

Ah, fuck him. “ _ Jusfuckinshuttupfuckkinfuck- _ ”

For once Logan listened. His voice stopped. Father of the goddamn year over here. Daken snarled and wished he could stab him again. 

No way he’d have stood close enough. Not twice in a row. 

How long were they there for? He couldn’t tell. The pain ebbed, the cold kept helping. It was exhausting. Pieces came back to him slowly. The bunker. Fucking  _ Logan.  _ The explosion. Now here. 

Well, at least it was a little less embarrassing than a hangover. 

When the world stopped burning, he opened his eyes. Fucking Logan. Fucking looking at him like he was  _ worried.  _ God, even worse, maybe he really thought he was. The last thing Daken needed was paternal concern.

“Hey.” Logan’s voice sounded hoarse. Uneven. Uncertain. “You, uh. Been out for a while.”

What was he supposed to say to that? Thank him for being such a doting father? Instead Daken stayed stubbornly silent, met Logan’s eyes with a glare. 

It took him maybe twenty seconds to get the message. Finally, Logan sighed, stretched his arm behind his back and gestured to Daken with the other thumb. “So. Explosion. You got hurt bad. Still don’t have your legs back.”

Well. Fantastic. Daken looked down to check, and yep. No legs. A blanket covering the lower half of his not-body, which was an unusually civilised thing for his ignorant asshole of a father to manage. Not that it mattered. What did he care if Logan saw him naked? What did he care what Logan saw, period. 

He was not grateful for the blanket. He was negatively grateful for the blanket. 

Then his eyes went higher, and the blanket really didn’t matter anymore. 

Daken grabbed at his chest, the movement far away and difficult. Maybe his brain was still healing. “What- what is  _ this _ ?” He spat, holding a handful of the stuff. The  _ shirt _ . “This is- this is fucking  _ flannel _ .”

“Yeah.” And oh, Logan was smiling now? Smiling? A small smile- the sort of smile that said he didn’t want to be smiling it but here he was, doing it anyway and  _ fuck him. _ Daken was going to cut out his tongue. “It’s all I could find.”

He looked at his father. Really looked at him. Christ. This was hell. A true, true hell.  

Because Logan was wearing an identical shirt. 

Matching fucking flannel fucking shirts. 

  
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Daken swears a lot here. I feel like generally he’d see himself as too sophisticated for constant swearing, but the guy’s got a hole in his head so. Y’know. Leeway.


End file.
